How (and why) to donate your body to science

Donating your body to science gives medical students the chance to learn information that could someday lead to a cure or greater longevity.

"There are never enough donations to meet the needs of the medical schools in Pennsylvania," said Clariza Murray, director of public relations and the donor program for the Humanities Gift Registry in Philadelphia.

Students study human anatomy as part of their medical training. Because of the shortage of donations, "it often means several students share one body, which isn't an ideal learning situation," she said.

The registry receives between 680 to 700 body donations a year.

Debora Hompesch-Loch of Reeders thinks more medical personnel should be educated on the process of how to leave a body to science.

In January, her mother, Jean Smith, a lifelong resident of Monroe County, was dying from cancer and decided to leave her body to science in hopes that medicine could learn about the type she had.

"Basically, there two types of cancer cells: large and small. The type my mother had was small-cell cancer, and it is much harder to diagnose," she said.

By the time Smith knew her ill health wasn't just minor stomach trouble, the cancer had invaded nearly every internal organ.

"My mom had scans, but because of it being small-cell cancer, the tumors didn't show up," she said.

During the last week of Smith's life, she made the decision to leave her body to science, according to her daughter.

"The problem was (that) no one knew how we should go about it," Hompesch-Loch said.

After asking her mother's nurses and hospice providers if they knew how to make such a donation, Hompesch-Loch was still no closer to a contact. Her mother's funeral director didn't know much about the donation process, either.

Finally, after much searching and questioning, Hompesch-Loch found a national organ registry in Chicago online, where she was able to learn more about the donation process.

"We were running out of time before my mother would die, and I really needed to find out what we should do," she said.

After she was directed to William H. Clark Funeral Home in Stroudsburg, Hompesch-Loch said that the wheels began to move.

"Three days after my mother died, her body was delivered to The Commonwealth Medical School in Scranton," she said.

If you live in Pennsylvania, the Human Gifts Registry of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, can help.

"We are able to accept most bodies, and it is only under the rarest circumstances that a donor's body might be rejected," Murray said.

One of the biggest misconceptions Murray hears is that the registry sells organ parts for money.

"Absolutely not," she said.

The Humanity Gifts Registry is a nonprofit agency, and the organization is focused on the receipt and distribution of bodies donated to all medical and dental schools in the state for teaching purposes.

The participating schools pay only for the actual expenses involved in obtaining and distributing the donated bodies to the medical facilities in the registry.

"The Auditor General of Pennsylvania regularly comes in and examines our the financial records to make sure all the funds are accounted for," Murray said.

Murray often talks to groups about how to become a donor. "I always tell them to think how through their generosity, knowledge will continue to grow," she said.